presence2influenceexamining the politics of representation in global environmental governance

Project Overview

The United Nations has identified indigenous peoples and women as two groups most affected by environmental change, including climate change (UN 2010). Although indigenous peoples make up approximately five percent (5%) of the global population, they constitute more than one-third of the world’s poorest people and govern, occupy, or use nearly 22% of global land area, thus suggesting that indigenous peoples, and indigenous women in particular, are key stakeholders in global environmental governance (UN 2010, UN n.d.). Moreover, there has been an upwelling of different forums and groups associated with indigenous peoples, women, and forest governance related to climate change, including the Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, Indigenous Women in REDD, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, and the Forest Peoples Programme, among many others, that engage global policy arenas. Until the mid-1990s, however, indigenous peoples had limited—if any—formal representation in international environmental policy-making. The primary mechanism for representation is traditionally through formal state channels, many of which fail to recognize indigenous peoples and rights, thus excluding them from any formal political representation in international policy-making arenas.

In recent years, however, indigenous peoples and local communities have steadily gained access and opportunities to participate in international policy-making arenas. This increased participation is particularly visible in global environmental governance venues, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Despite, however, the resources and attention dedicated to indigneous representation and the increased presence of indigenous peoples in global environmental governance, their influence on decision outcomes remains weak (Witter et al 2015).

​In this project, we seek to identify and examine the ways in which marginalized and underrepresented groups effectively influence governance processes that directly impact their ways of living.

Objectives

​Global environmental governance is comprised of complex and expansive networks of actors, ranging from nation-states, to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and industry partners. This project seeks to examine how these networks and governance practices at COP21 and WCC engage in the politics of indigenous representation to shape the outcomes of the negotiations.

We have six specific goals:

Analyze the process of negotiation and decision-making surrounding forest and biodversity issues by and for indigenous and marginalized peoples at COP21 and WCC to expand our conceptual understanding of influence

Examine how dominant narratives of global environmental governance are presented, shaped, and legitimized at such meetings

Enhance the contributions of the method to our understanding of global environmental governance by integrating emerging digitial ethnography methods into our study

Refine and further innovate the collaborative event ethnography approach

Provide methodological training and research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students

Build an interdisciplinary event ethnography research team between Northwestern University and Purdue University to enhance our ability to secure funding for future projects